Thursday 2 June 2011 15.10 EDT
First published on Thursday 2 June 2011 15.10 EDT

Britain's national press is uniquely obsessed with "intimate sexual details" and should be subjected to stricter control, lawyers for Max Mosley argue in a submission to the European court of human rights.

The former Formula One boss is pursuing his campaign to impose on newspapers a duty to warn people before publishing stories exposing their lives. Despite losing a similar claim at the ECHR earlier this month, his lawyers confirmed on Thursday that he wants to raise the principle of prior notification in Strasbourg's upper court.

The Grand Chamber of the ECHR considers cases which raise "serious questions of interpretation" of the human rights convention. It has yet to decide whether it will hear the case.

Mosley's refusal to abandon his cause adds to pressure on the government to clarify for judges where the boundaries between freedom of expression and the right to privacy should be drawn.

In 2008 the UK high court awarded Mosley £60,000 damages after ruling that there was no justification for a front-page article and pictures in the News of the World about his meeting with five prostitutes in a London flat.

Enforcing prior notification would enable individuals to apply for an injunction preventing publication. The submission drawn up by his lawyer, Lord Pannick, explicitly draws attention to the government's reluctance to pass a privacy law.

"The UK government and parliament have left it to the courts to develop the law which protects Article 8 rights [to respect for a private and family life]," it states. "The [ECHR earlier this month] noted that no other contracting state imposes such a pre-publication requirement to notify (though many contracting states do apply a requirement for consent before publication).

"But no other state has a press which habitually trades on the publication of the intimate, sexual details of people's private lives ... It is because of such journalistic malpractices, in breach of Article 8, that an effective remedy is required."

Mosley's solicitors added: "Without an obligation to notify, there will remain no remedy for what the court described as 'a flagrant and unjustified invasion of [our client's] private life'.

"Newspapers could use the same techniques tomorrow to obtain and publish intimate photographs and details of the sex lives of individuals, without notice and in the knowledge that it is wholly unlawful.

"A ruling from the grand chamber of the court is needed upon this important issue to close a clear gap in UK law."

In its judgment, the ECHR warned that a duty of prior notification would have a "chilling effect" on the media.